Patent GB-539365-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in apparatus for feeding articles
IPC: B65B35/58
Filed: 1940-03-06
Abstract: 539,365. Feeding articles from hoppers and shoots. DEARSLEY, G., HARRIS, R. W., and MOLINS MACHINE CO., Ltd. March 6, 1940, No. 4201 and 8784. [Class 117] [Also in Groups XXI and XXX] For feeding articles of similar shape having an enlarged portion by which they are suspended between guides in a uniform position, the guides are formed by a pair of elements, such as rotatable rollers, with opposed curved surfaces one at least of which is moved in an upward direction. Screws, nails, rivets, cartridges for small arms ammunition, and links for disintegrating cartridge as shown in Fig. 1, are examples of the articles referred to. In one form as applied to the feeding of cartridge-belt links, as a conveyer 8, Fig. 4, with hooks or cups 7 lift the links from a container 6 and dump them through a shoot 10 on to the upper part of two oppositely rotating inclined rollers, between which they are suspended by their larger loops 3, Fig. 1. Links which are entangled with others or are not correctly positioned are swept off the rollers by a rotating deflector, and to ensure that the entangled links may be brought into the sphere of action of the deflector, a wheel may be provided under the rollers having projections which can pass between single links but engages and lifts upwardly entangled links. Alternatively a conveyer, which may also act to feed the links forward, may be constructed and timed so that its projections function to lift the entangled links. After leaving the rollers, the individual links pass into a channel 19, Fig. 6, with an overhanging guide 17 and side guides 18. Asymmetrical shoulders 5 on the links then engage one or other of the guiding edges 20 to tilt the link to one side or other and the tilted link is then switched by a guide member 21 into one or other of two channels in each of which the links are all directed in the same way. At the foot of each channel the links are delivered into a runway or holder, by a reciprocating pusher 25 which is pivotally connected to an actuating rod 30 and carries a detector arm 28 adapted to enter the feed channel. If the channel has a sufficient reserve of links, the detector arm abuts against one of them and the pusher arm swings about its pivot to deliver the bottom link in the absence of a sufficient reserve the pusher arm fails to function. A modification adapted for the orientation of tapered articles such as cartridges is shown in Fig. 16, and comprises two rollers 50 which are inclined from a feed shoot 49 which is supplied from a hopper 46 by a vertically reciprocating lifting device 47. The rollers are slightly reduced at their delivery ends 54 so that correctly placed cartridges drop below the radius of action of a rotating brush 56 which removes those riding on the top of the others or across the rollers. Flexible aprons 55 are disposed at one or more positions across the rollers to impede the passage of the cartridges and give them time to settle into correct position. The cartridges drop on to spaced guides 61, 62 which turns them from the vertical to the horizontal position on a support which may be a fluted roller 64 or other device. Specifications 539,379 and 539,380 are referred to.